VII.
In more recent times, particularly since 1870, the national poet of Italy has been Giosue Carducci: perhaps the greatest European poet in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Benedetto Croce writes of him: "The poetry of Carducci, sprung to birth at the close of the old Italian life and the beginning of the new, can be called a true epos of the history of Italy in the history of the world." Much of Carducci's verse, especially in the Odi barbare, represents in the highest artistic form that continuity of the Latin spirit which is the note of Italian civilisation throughout the centuries. The worship of Italy is with him a passion. His lyrical exaltation of agriculture and rural life, his love of the fields, the harvests, the "sante visioni della natura," becomes one with his patriotic fervour; for the land that he depicts is Italy, the Italy of immemorial Latin tradition, Italy with her reminiscences of a mighty past, Italy which the glorious achievements of the Risorgimento has prepared for an even nobler future. At the end of one of his masterpieces, the ode Alle fonti del Clitumno, comes a characteristic and significant note—we see the smoke and hear the whistle of the railway engine, symbol of economic progress, bringing new industries through the Umbrian plain:—
"Plaudono i monti al carme e i boschi e l'acque
de l'Umbria verde: in faccia a noi fumando
ed anelando nuove Industrie in corsa
fischia il vapore."
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